Sixty years ago.
Terra Year 716, winter.
After losing the competition against Gride Sardo and failing to become Azure Star's heir, Yulan Avaritia was unwilling to remain on Farshore Island as a loser and become Gride's deputy. Instead, she chose to lead an ocean-going fleet to the New Continent.
She took over that ramshackle settlement on the New Continent and became the first settlement governor to voluntarily travel there.
At the time, Yulan was nearly thirty. She had recently broken through to the peak of the Third Energy Level. So long as she became Azure Star's heir, she would soon reach the Fourth Energy Level and become one of those standing atop the Mountain Summit, holding the greatest power on the Terra Continent.
It could be said that Yulan was just one step away from becoming someone who could sway the Terra Continent.
But in the end, she failed.
It was not because she was not outstanding.
In fact, in ascension arts and alchemy, Yulan was even more exceptional than Gride had been at the time.
Her bloodline, Sky-Dust Wood, was a rare ancient magical plant ascended from the most ordinary Dustwood. And she herself had headed the research team that invented the Bloodline Ascension Technique, which could elevate part of an "ordinary magic beast or plant" bloodline into an "ancient magic beast or plant" bloodline.
Back then, Yulan was young and already a master of biological alchemy. She had noticed that many magic beasts on the Terra Continent possessed potential far beyond what they themselves—or even humans—could imagine.
Many seemingly unremarkable magic beasts and magical plants could, as long as they met certain conditions, be cultivated and transformed with certain materials into astonishingly powerful "special" individuals.
And there were surprisingly many such special individuals on the New Continent.
That